


nothing in between me and the rain

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Rivals With Benefits, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: (major spoilers through Partizan 28)“You’re going to live forever?” Clem said. “That hardly seems fair. How are we supposed to be rivals if you have that kind of,” she broke off to cough up more blood and seawater, “advantage?”OR,in which Gucci is a vampire, and Clem has seen better days
Relationships: Gucci Garantine/Clementine Kesh
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	nothing in between me and the rain

**Author's Note:**

> originally meant to be written for FatT Sapphic Week for the prompt "storm" but I sure didn't get it done in time oops
> 
> content warnings for: near death experience involving drowning, blood, references to abusive parenting, self-inflicted wounds for vampire reasons
> 
> also, once again, big big spoilers for pzn 28

The storm was still raging, the waves crashing against Fort Icebreaker, the wind driving frigid rain into Gucci’s eyes, soaking her through her jacket (designed more for style and the lights of a political debate stage than the practicalities of diving into the ocean in the middle of a storm, though it was surprisingly bullet-resistant despite being fairly useless at keeping out the chill). Still, Gucci wasn’t particularly worried for herself, as she stood on the lowest observation deck, close enough to sea level that the waves swept up across the deck, and if it weren’t for her very firm grip on the guardrail she would’ve been swept away. But she wouldn’t be her alma mater’s record-setting water polo champion if she didn’t know how to swim, and anyway she didn’t even need to breathe. Immortality was convenient like that.

Conditional immortality, but still, immortality nonetheless. Being a member of a secret society that had survived generations, millenia, preserving and passing down hidden knowledge that otherwise would have been lost long ago in a far away star sector, had its advantages. Her mech was one. Vampirism was another. True, it had its drawbacks, and she couldn’t honestly say that she didn’t miss being able to eat garlic bread without sneezing, but right now none of that mattered. Right now what mattered was that she couldn’t drown, and no one else with her abilities would be willing to recover Clementine Kesh’s body.

No one else would be willing, period. Gucci had no illusions about how hated Clem had made herself, through a combination of birth, attitude, and actions: it was for what she represented symbolically, as a scion of the royal line of the oppressive enemy, for what she had done with the power she’d been given, and for the disdain with which she held the rest of Millenium Break and their processes and policies and ideals. And Gucci got it, she really did, she was as frustrated as anyone by Clem’s insistence that Cruciat was worth saving, that there ought to still be a throne at the end of their revolution. But she could learn, given someone willing to teach her and more time away from the toxic influence of her insidious mother, and Gucci couldn’t exactly blame anyone else for not having the patience to wait and to talk to her and to help her but still. She wished Clem hadn’t made so many enemies, wished that someone other than her cared that Clem was dead- dying- probably dead but she hadn’t seen a body yet and Clem had always, always, been so full of life, impulsive and brash and so dynamic, so alive that Gucci felt intoxicated by her very presence. But still, she wished Clem had just listened, ever, when anyone in the dwindling number of people who bothered to try warned her that the path she was on would lead only to ruin. Sovereign Immunity had tried, Gucci knew, in his gruff, calculating way, and Gur Sevraq had tried, though recent events caused Gucci to reconsider his motivations. And Gucci had tried, again and again, and she had hoped that she could get through to Clem were everyone else had failed, because she  _ knew _ Clem, and she knew the delicate balance that she had to walk as a Kesh noble in a revolution against, amongst other things, the very concepts of Stel Kesh and nobility, and she’d thought that she, out of everyone, could help Clem through the transition.

The water was cold, chilling her to the bone even though she no longer needed warmth to function, waking her from her self-indulgent reflections. Clem might still be alive—she knew it was a long shot, but she desperately wanted to believe—and to waste time mourning her and risk not finding her until it was too late would be unconscionable.

She dove in, fighting to keep her head above water, refusing to think about what the salt would do to her hair, gasping when she got slapped in the face by a wave, until she caught sight of something white and billowing: Clem’s dress, reflecting the lights of the fort above, almost glowing against the dark water. Gucci looped her arms around Clem’s torso, not letting herself slow down enough to notice if she was still breathing until she heaved her up onto another observation deck, a higher one that was slightly less underwater than the first, though still low enough that the spray of the waves was more or less constant, like standing in salt-flavored fog.

Clem’s skin was cold and waxen, almost blue, her eyes closed, and blood was still seeping from the gash in her side. She had blood under her carefully manicured fingernails—chewed and ragged, now, in a way Gucci hadn’t seen since they were in school together before she’d kicked that particular nervous habit—burgundy half moons that stood out against the unhealthy pallor of her skin.

“Wake up,” Gucci said, but she could barely hear herself over the rain and the waves and the blaring alarm. “Clem, wake up!”

Clem did not wake up, because she never did what anyone told her to do.

“Clem, please…”

But Clem remained silent and still, only the slightest rise and fall of her chest and the faint rattling of her breath reassuring Gucci that she was alive, at least for now. Even if Gucci got her inside and carried her to the infirmary right away, it wouldn’t be enough. She had been on enough battlefields to know what death looked like, and Clem was at its doorstep, tripping over the threshold like she was late for dinner. There was one thing that Gucci knew could save her now, though  _ save _ was a relative term. Gucci considered herself to be alive, of course, but for her the change had been expected, an honor even, and she knew other vampires, usually those turned under traumatic circumstances, or the ones who weren’t given a choice, who would disagree. She wanted Clem to have a choice.

There was always the chance, however unlikely it seemed, that the healing properties of her blood would heal Clem, but at the very least it would probably wake her up, so Gucci steeled herself against the pain and drew one sharp fingernail across her own forearm, deep enough to draw blood. Blood welled up in the cut and stained the tip of her nail, marring the color she’d spent so long picking out. It was a bottle that Clem had gotten her, a color that complimented her own aesthetic as well as Clem’s own favorite shade, so that when they held hands their nails matched. It had been a long time since they’d held hands, since they’d had time for more than a quick makeout session in the back room at a stuffy Cruciat party.

Her blood dripped, thick and dark, into Clem’s open mouth, and sure enough, it was potent enough to wake her up, just enough that her eyelids fluttered open and she said, weakly, trying to sit up even as Gucci held her still so that she could save her strength, “Gucci?”

“I’m here,” she said, blinking away hot tears, a sharp contrast from the cold rain against her cheeks. “I’ve got you.”

“My hero,” Clem said drily, and then coughed, a trickle of her own blood running down her chin, one hand weakly clutching her side--not the open wound, but the other side, where Gucci suspected she’d broken at least two ribs. “Aren’t you going to tell me that everything is going to be okay?”

“I’m done with lying to you,” Gucci said, “and I have one more secret to tell.”

“Confessing your sins to the dead?” Clem said. “Classy.”

“Just listen to me,” Gucci said. “You don’t have to die.”

“Wow, why didn’t I think of that?” Clem said. “What if instead of getting stabbed a load of times and falling however many fucking feet into fucking freezing water, I just simply didn’t do that? What if I just survived instead of dying in the most stupid, meaningless way possible before I’ve even accomplished anything worth remembering? Oh, sure, I took Fort Icebreaker,” she said dismissively, the way she used to talk about passing her exams without studying or having half of the girls at school ask her to be their date to the graduation ball, “but what’s that next to Cruciat, or Partizan, or  _ Kesh _ ? I can’t die here, Gucci, I thought I was going to when I was in the water but I can’t, not yet, I need you to carry me into the city so that I can spit blood into my mother’s smug fucking face.”

For a moment, Gucci thought she could survive this on spite alone, and then she broke down into horrible hacking coughs, more blood bubbling up at the corner of her lips, faster than the driving rain could wash away, and Gucci realized, heart sinking, that her blood wouldn’t be enough. Clem was dying, had only a few minutes to live, unless Gucci turned her. Anyone else in Horizon, anyone else in Millenium Break, would have said she was making a mistake, and politically speaking she probably was. Clem had made it clear where she stood, and who she stood against, and granting her immortality, along with the other various perks of vampirism, was like handing an enemy a loaded gun. Except Clem might have been her rival, her political opponent-turned-reluctant-ally-turned-opponent-again, but Gucci would never be able to consider them personal enemies, not after the time they’d spent together, their long messy history that Gucci would never be able to disentangle herself from, even if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t want to. She hadn’t kept in touch with anyone else from their school days, not in any real way. Sure, she’d seen them to parties and networking events, politely inquired after their careers and their families, and then touched Clem’s hand and exchanged significant looks and retreated back to some secluded corner to trade gossip. Sometimes they kissed, sometimes they didn’t, but either way Gucci preferred Clem’s company over any of the rest of their peers, even though Clem stubbornly refused to agree with several of the core tenets of Gucci’s worldview. And the Clem who had joined Millenium Break was a different person, a better person—Gucci hoped, or at least a person who could be better—than the Clem who had been under her mother’s thumb in Cruciat, sullen and miserable and prone to lashing out in fits of pique, or the Clem she’d known at school, confidant and fickle and always trying to act larger than life. She had always seen glimpses of the person she thought Clem could be, a leader and a visionary and someone that Gucci could see herself fighting alongside on the battlefield and the debate floor, someone with whom she could build both a life and a future.

Gucci wasn’t ready to give up on that future. Even if it meant the next few months or years of her life were spent making sure Clem and Millenium Break didn’t tear each other apart, it would be worth it. She believed in Millenium Break, knew with more certainty than she had ever known anything that the galaxy needed a change, but she loved Clem, both in the familiar, comforting way built up over years of friendship and rivalry, the way she knew Clem felt about her, and also in a quiet intense way that she only admitted to herself when she was alone, because as long as she’d known Clem she’d never allowed herself to trust in other people’s feelings, especially when it came to people claiming they cared about her. And so Gucci hated being forced to choose between them. She could have both. She had to believe it was possible for her to have both.

“I assume you’ve heard the stories about the original Rapid Evening?” Gucci said, not sure how to begin to tell Clem a secret she’d been keeping for so long. She really, really wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, especially not someone so vocally opposed to Horizon’s goals and ideals. “About how long they lived, how they preserved their lives along with their knowledge? Well, they’re true. And they’re true of Horizon as well. Of me.”

“You’re going to live forever?” Clem said. “That hardly seems fair. How are we supposed to be rivals if you have that kind of,” she broke off to cough up more blood and seawater, “advantage?”

“It’s a gift that I can share,” Gucci said. “I’d like to share it with you, if you want.”

“Where’s the catch?” Clem said. There was always a catch, with Clem. Or more accurately, there was always a catch with Crysanth, and Clem had learned to always be watching for the teeth of the trap to snap shut around her, had learned that she had to strike first if she didn’t want to get hurt, or worse—in Crysanth’s unforgiving worldview—embarrassed.

“Depends on what you define as a drawback,” said Gucci. “I have to drink people’s blood to survive, sometimes, but it’s not an every day thing and it hasn’t really hurt my social life at all. I mean, some people think it’s a kind of dying but look at me, do I look dead to you?”

“No,” said Clem, “no, you look…” Her voice trailed off, and Gucci couldn’t tell if she’d just changed her mind about finishing that thought or if she was losing strength even more rapidly than she’d realized.

“I won’t do this unless you want me to,” Gucci said, “but if you want to survive, I can make that happen. You’ll have to drink blood, and you’ll be allergic to garlic, and get sunburns more easily, and you won’t be able to die unless you’re killed which,” she shrugged—for many people, this was where it got tough, but she was a mech pilot on the frontlines of a war against the concept of empire, she wasn’t particularly worried about outliving everyone who knew her, and in the meantime, being slightly less killable than the average human had its advantages—and continued, “I guess depends on how you look at it.”

“Do it,” Clem said, forceful even though her voice sounded like it was coming from far away through a staticky radio, barely audible above the rain and the waves and the alarm.

“Are you sure?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Clem said. “I’m not gonna pass up a chance like this.”

“Okay,” Gucci said. “Just a warning, though, it’s probably gonna hurt. You already drank some of my blood, that’s the first step, and then I have to drink a bunch of yours. It wasn’t really a pleasant experience when it happened to me, and I thought I was prepared.”

“Oh, so it hurts,” Clem said, with a pained little huff of laughter. “More than dying?”

“Wouldn’t know,” said Gucci. “I’ve never died.”

“Well, I don’t want to either,” said Clem, “so hurry up and make me immortal.”

“Okay, princess,” said Gucci, and she sank her fangs into Clem’s throat.

**Author's Note:**

> title from Hurricane Drunk by Florence and the Machine
> 
> inspired by a time I kept accidentally trying to called the Golden Lance the Rapid Evening and said the words "the Rapid Evening are vampires" which made me think that. what if they were, actually, they sure have a good name for a secret organization of vampires
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/s_artemisios)!!!


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